Trivendra Singh Rawat Sworn in as New Chief Minister of Uttarakhand

Former Uttarakhand BJP chief Trivendra Singh Rawat was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of the state on March 18, 2017 at the Parade Grounds in state capital Dehradun.Uttarakhand Governor K K Paul administered the oath of office and secrecy to 56-year-old Rawat and nine ministers at a ceremony.

• The other members who took oath includes Satpal Maharaj, Harak Singh Rawat, Madan Kaushik, Arvind Pandey, Subodh Uniyal, Yashpal Arya and Prakash Pant who have been made Cabinet ministers
• Besides, Rekha Arya and Dhan Singh Rawat took oath as ministers of state.
• The BJP won 57 seats of the hill state’s 70-member state assembly to form a new government by taking away the power from the Congress which managed to win only 11 in the assembly elections.
• Rawat is the 9th Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and 5th BJP Chief Minister of the state.

Key Highlight of The Event

The oath swearing ceremony was attended by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and other national and state party leaders.

• Rawat was selected as BJPs as CM-designate after a meeting of BJP leaders Dharmendra Pradhan, JP Nadda, Shyam Jaju, Saroj Pandey and observer Narendra Singh Tomar on March 17, 2017.
• As per Shyam Jaju, the in-charge of the party’s affairs in Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat was chosen due to his administrative and organisational skills and experience.
• The 57-year-old will be the fifth BJP chief minister in Uttarakhand. Rawat defeated the Congress’s Hira Singh Bisht in the Doiwala constituency with a margin of over 24,000 votes. This was his third win from the constituency since 2002.
• The BJP party formed its first government in the state when it was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000. Nityanand Swami was the first BJP Chief Minister of the state. Swami was replaced by BJP’s B.S. Koshyari in March 2001.

About Trivendra Singh Rawat

Rawat was born in December 1960 in the village of Khairasain in Pauri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand (formerly in Uttar Pradesh).

• Rawat joined the right-wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1979 before becoming its pracharak (apostle) for the Dehradun region in 1985. Subsequently, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political party associated with it.
• He served as an RSS pracharak till 2002 and has a postgraduate degree in mass communication and journalism from Garhwal.
• He was made BJP’s organizing secretary for the Uttarakhand region and worked with senior BJP leader Lalji Tandon at the time.
• After the region received statehood in 2000, Rawat was made the state cadre’s BJP president.
• He was elected from Doiwala in the State’s first legislative assembly elections in 2002. Rawat has a record of winning all three times he has contested from this seat.
• He retained his seat in the 2007 elections and served as the State’s Minister of Agriculture.
• Rawat was appointed the party’s national secretary in 2013. As a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, he served as Jharkhand’s in-charge.
• During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Rawat was given responsibility of regional election in-charge in Uttar Pradesh.
• Rawat is known for his clean image with no criminal record to his credit. He has declared assets worth Rs 1 crore.